In April 2012, Messrs Georges Pauget and Emmanuel Constans (former director of Crédit Agricole and chairman of the Financial Sector Advisory Committee respectively) submitted their report on “The future of means of payment in France” to the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry. 

Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) between Canada and China signed in 2012 (ratification pending) expected to facilitate bilateral investment flows by providing a more stable and secure investment framework and designed to protect and promote Chinese investment in Canada as well as Canadian investment in China through legally binding provisions,will allow investors to invest with greater confidence by ensuring greater...

Once a company has completed an IPO, it becomes subject to continuous disclosure and corporate governance requirements. The purpose of these rules is to keep the market informed about developments in the company’s business, which maintains investors’ confidence and supports their ability to make informed investment decisions. Annual and Interim Reporting Annual financial statements must be filed within 90 days of a company’s fiscal year-end and...

In a typical firm-commitment, or marketed, underwriting, the underwriters agree, subject to certain conditions and termination rights, to buy all of the offered securities at a fixed price. Generally, the underwriters will not sign the underwriting agreement unless they accumulate sufficient expressions of interest from investors, thus minimizing the risk of holding unsold securities. Some offerings are done on a best-efforts basis, whereby the...

If the final prospectus contains a misrepresentation, the company, any promoter or selling shareholders, the CEO, CFO, each director, each underwriter and certain others (including experts such as the company’s auditor in relation to the financial statements and the qualified person in relation to the mining technical report) may be liable to purchasers of the securities. A misrepresentation is an untrue statement of a material fact or an...

Conditioning the market for the company’s securities or promoting public interest in the company is prohibited before the preliminary prospectus is publicly available. The marketing period for an IPO typically lasts two to four weeks. During this time, the preliminary prospectus is the only marketing document that may be distributed to the public. Potential investors cannot make binding commitments to buy the securities until the final...

The first major step for the company after selecting underwriters is to prepare a preliminary prospectus that contains full, true and plain disclosure of all material facts related to the securities to be offered. It is essential that a company spend time and effort to thoughtfully prepare its prospectus to ensure that it provides potential investors with a clear understanding of the company’s business and prospects and articulates both why the...

Timing and Timetable Determining the appropriate time to go public is a critical decision. Generally, a company going public should have a favorable financial history (or promising assets in case of a mining company) and outlook, with a clear story about why its securities would be an attractive investment. The timing for an IPO may also be affected by external market factors, including general or sector-specific market downturns. The IPO...